Digital Media India 2016
echoes over protection of
digital business from legacy culture
News on mobile internet trending as smart-phones
and quality bandwidth become affordable
The fifth edition of Digital Media India conference, organised
by WAN-IFRA (World Association of Newspapers and
News Publishers) from February 22-33, 2016 at Aerocity in
New Delhi, had the theme ‘Engaging Audience, Monetising
Content’. The conference drew 170 delegates from more than
10 countries, highest figure ever recorded in the past five years
and 35 percent growth from the previous edition. SM Dutt,
technical editor, All About Newspapers reports a brief
account of all that presented, analysed and discussed during the
two-day news media conference.
On the first day, in his opening keynote
address at the onset of the conference,
Torry Pedersen, CEO/editor-in-chief
of Verdens Gang (VG), Norway, underlined
the importance of protecting digital media
business from legacy culture. This norm
is what this largely circulated Norwegian
tabloid VG follows back home and it set
to be the main ‘message’ conveyed even
at the last panel discussion on the second
day that followed the concluding session
of Digital Media India 2016.
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To the rhythm of the surging wave of digital
era, Pedersen eloquently presented how VG
transitioned by thinking ‘digital first’ and
recruiting right people to cope with the
dynamics of transformation now taking place
in the news media world. He explained that
‘digital’ is not disrupting journalism, but
enabling, citing an instance of 1.6 million
readers in the age group of 12-16 years
who hooked only to online to catch the
news of the recent Paris terror attack. He
further stressed that the transformation would
require new criteria for success, setting the
tone for the conference’s deliberations.
Indian scenario
Talking about the current Indian scenario,
Rajan Anandan, vice president & MD, Google
South East Asia & India, mentioned that
65 percent of news readers in the country
access to internet via mobile and the total
number of users is estimated to reach 500
million by 2017. “Online news requires
new capabilities – web and app, video and
Wi-Fi and localised content,” he explained
estimating 500 million internet users and
400 million mobile users by 2017 in the
country. In the follow-up panel discussion
session, highlighting top priorities for the
year 2016, Anant Goenka, director & headnews
media, The Express Group, observed
the impact of instant video news on mobile,
citing the example of news on the recent
Chennai flood, which received big hit on
YouTube.
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At the discussion, Sanjay Tehran, business
head-digital content & syndication,
HT Media Ltd, agreed the perceptible fact
that ‘news on internet is working’ and video
is a big priority in this. His focus leaned to
social media, emphasising on ‘engagement’
and ‘monetisation’ into this new-age online
platform. Sharing the success story of his
company’s new age digital news media
platform, Keith Cheong, head of salesdigital
division, Singapore Press Holding
(SPH), indicated content, videos, mobilephones
as top priorities. Conclusive note
at the discussion drawn upon journalism
not disrupted by digitisation, it has only
made it enhancement.
Big Data getting bigger
A big thing in the session on ‘Big Data’
was of understanding preferences of audience
and integrating them into content decision
making. Neerav Parekh, founder & CEO,
vPhrase (India), introduced the company’s
robotic software programme PHRAZOR,
which can rewrite data-driven articles in
real time basis. When asked, "Is it threat
to human journalists?" Neerav replied, “It’s
not; it’s just enabling and speeding up the
manual tasks of journalists.” PHRAZOR
analyses, reasons and writes like a human
being, in multiple languages.
Tariq Hussain, founder & COO, Express
KCS, presented the company’s high-quality
advertising and marketing production
for global brands. Another speaker in
the session, Srinivasan Ramani, deputy
national editor, The Hindu, narrated about
the newspaper’s engagement in big data
collection and mining, which helps them
engage to the right online audience; the
venture is now set a long way ahead to
do fresh activities further.
Hinting at the current trends on new
social media and online video, Ashok
Venkatramani, CEO, ABP News Network,
mentioned about the surge of ‘digital
media’ as an adored medium among young
generation. In this, India boasts a young
population consisting of 65 percent below
35 years of age and they are recurrently
switched to social media, online videos for
instant news feeds.
Organic growth
In a follow-up session on organic growth
in social media, Rajesh Priyadarshi,
digital editor, BBC Hindi, narrated the
growth story of digital media ever since
the advent of dot.com technologies and the
horizon of news media being hovered with
new opportunities. He further narrated that
the onset of digital media has augmented
various aspects, such as instant people to
people interaction on online news media
platforms. But the challenge, according to
Rajesh, is the authenticity of the sources
and genuineness of the news items.
Youth Ki Awaaj, a mouthpiece for the
youth across the nation, is a vibrant online
platform where young readers could grab
news, share their views. Anshul Tiwari,
founder & editor-in-chief, Youth Ki Awaaj,
mentioned that what it ticks these days
is ‘good content’ to engage with local
communities. “Everything is boiled down
to content; content is king,” he mentioned.
In the parallel breakout session titled ‘Right
Ingredient for Online News Video’, a host of
speakers comprising Prasad Sanyal, editor,
timeofindia.com; Kartik Nagrajan, national
director-content & social media, GroupM;
and international German journalist Robb
Montgomery, echoed over the effective use
of online news videos.
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One-of-its-kind rural online news service,
CGNet Swara runs Bultoo Radio (the term
‘Bultoo’ is derived from what it sounds
when village people pronounce ‘Blue
Tooth’) broadcasting radio programmes
for people in remote Chhattisgarh. Talking
about the online news service, Subhranshu
Choudhary, co-founder, CGNet Swara,
mentioned that their radio programmes are
primarily messages and songs of people
submitted to the station via a common
CGnet Swara online calling number.
‘Engaging the Mobile Audience’ was the
session in which Subhajit Banerjee, editormobile,
The Guardian, narrated the success
story of the newspaper’s mobile journey and
responsive news sites. He said the ultimate
trick in the mission is to provide readers
what they want. The final session at the
closure of the first day of the conference
was a ‘case study’ from The Indian Express,
narrating the design approach for mobile
audience, presented by Renuka Chugh,
assistant manager - product (Apps), The
Indian Express.
Audience engagement
Dawn of the second day of the conference
cracked with the opening keynote speech
from Anjali Kapoor, head of digital,
Bloomberg (Hong Kong), discoursing on
tactical practices of audience engagement.
In the immediate follow-up session titled
‘Revenue Maximizing Ideas’, Keith Cheong,
head of sales, digital division, SPH, drew
up his company’s digital story, driving
constantly a gainful and sustainable online
news business extensively disseminating on
25 news portals. Matthew Sanders, senior
director, Desert Digital Media, talked about
keys to mobile ready branded contents, with
which they serve more than 450 publishers
worldwide.
A big challenge in the digital world is
‘advertising’. This was what two keynote
presenters in the session ‘Digital Advertising’
discussed about. In the inspiring session,
a case study was presented by Umair
Wolid, head-marketing & digital media,
Wijeya Newspaper, portraying a combined
native advertising/content marketing project.
Shedding a spotlight on ‘display advertising’,
Philip Jose, head - media solutions,
Mathrubhumi, talked about the increasing
challenge in the face of mobile content
consumption. In a parallel breakout session,
three eminent speakers talked at length
about ad blockers—Ben Shaw, directoradvisory,
WAN-IFRA; Swapnil Srivastava,
VP, Ad Tech, Times Internet Ltd; and Anita
Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media Group, India
& South Asia.
Content monetisation
The ultimate maneuver is to monetise
the content and programming advertising.
Bringing this approach, a couple of case
studies were presented in the session,
revealing inspiring methodologies. Radhika
Shukla, country director, News-Republic,
presented the case study on content
monetisation and the other on programmatic
advertising by Salil Kumar, COO, India
Today Group Digital. In connection to
advertisement aspects, Amit Mittal, founder
& CEO, Simplifi5D Technologies, narrated
the ways and tactics to protect contents and
revenues in case of ad-frauds.
Finally the last session of the conference
came up in form of a ‘panel discussion’
on digital pure players, whether they will
disrupt the traditional Indian news media
industry. In the chair was T Gautam Pai,
group managing director, Manipal Group,
along with a panel of speakers, comprising
Ritu Kapoor, founder, thequint.com;
Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor,
thewire.in; and Surthijith KK, editor-inchief,
Huffington Post (India). The discussion
stretched upon some key questions on
digital media aspects, such as would it be
able to sustain a business model and how
to reach audience and monetise content?
Empathetically, an ultimate solution to these
aspects, which the panelists agreed upon,
was protection of digital media business
from legacy culture.
